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Explore our awe-inspiring planet, continent by continent, through incredible images captured from the air by the likes of drones and satellites…

The pearls of Bahrain
Shaped like an ornate necklace, the Durrat Al-Bahrain islands are an artificial archipelago, whose name translates as ‘the most perfect pearl’. To create the 20km2 of new land off the south-east coast of Bahrain, 34 million cubic metres of material was dredged from the seafloor of the Persian Gulf. The islands are like mini towns with luxury homes, shopping malls and schools.
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The land of extremes
The rich red-orange sand dunes of the Namib Desert stretch inland towards the Naukluft Mountains. Most moisture from the Atlantic falls as rain near the coast, yet some rolls across the arid desert as fog, quenching wildlife and oxidising the iron in the sand dunes to create their red colour. Highland water flows down the Kuiseb River greening the land to the north. In the south, as the Tsondab River hits the desert, water evaporates, leaving behind white salt and mineral deposits.
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The great desert
This shot of part of t he Sahara in Western Libya was captured by EarthKAM – a NASA programme where students from all over the world can ask for images to be taken from the International Space Station of specific locations on Earth. The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, with northeasterly winds that can reach hurricane levels, and as little as 2.5cm of rain on average each year.
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Island birth
The world’s youngest island, Nishinoshima, is made up of two sections which formed over 60 years apart. The lower section was created in 1973 when an underwater volcano erupted, while the upper part first broke through the ocean’s surface in November 2013, merging with its neighbour soon after. Every day, the island produces 80 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of lava.
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At the heart of green energy
Over 4,000 mirrors direct sunlight to a boiler in a central tower at the Khi Solar One power plant in the Northern Cape, South Africa. At full capacity the boiler heats up to a toasty 530ºC. The plant began commercial operation in February 2016, and supplies energy to around 45,000 homes.
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A stunning and unique collection of satellite images of Earth that offer an unexpected look at humanity, derived from the wildly popular Daily Overview Instagram project.

Inspired by the “Overview Effect”—a sensation that astronauts experience when given the opportunity to look down and view the Earth as a whole—the breathtaking, high definition satellite photographs in OVERVIEW offer a new way to look at the landscape that we have shaped. More than 200 images of industry, agriculture, architecture, and nature highlight incredible patterns while also revealing a deeper story about human impact. This extraordinary photographic journey around our planet captures the sense of wonder gained from a new, aerial vantage point and creates a perspective of Earth as it has never been seen before.

“The vivid color photographs of J Henry Fair lead an uneasy double life as potent records of environmental pollution and as ersatz evocations of abstract painting…information and form work together, to devastating effect.” -Roberta Smith, The New York Times

Little Blue
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Your Own Deserted Beach
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Herbicide
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The Gift of the Tides
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Expectoration
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Photographer J Henry Fair is best known for his Industrial Scars series, in which he researches our world’s most egregious environmental disasters and creates images that are simultaneously stunning and horrifying, and more closely resemble abstract paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe and Jackson Pollock than what the collective views as reality.

About Max Serradifalcowas born in Palermo in 1978, lives and works in London. The great passion for nature and for experimentation led him in 2011 to devise the “Web Landscape Photography”. He has virtual traveled throughout planet in search of a new way to observe and reinterpret the natural landscapes of the Earth, becoming the first photographer that has made reportages making use of the satellite maps, through the web, without any manipulation.

Mission:
Our project was inspired, and derives its name, from an idea known as the Overview Effect. This term refers to the sensation astronauts have when given the opportunity to look down and view the Earth as a whole. They have the chance to appreciate our home in its entirety, to reflect on its beauty and its fragility all at once. That’s the cognitive shift that we hope to inspire.

From our line of sight on the earth’s surface, it’s impossible to fully appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the things we’ve constructed, the sheer complexity of the systems we’ve developed, or the devastating impact that we’ve had on our planet. We believe that beholding these forces as they shape our Earth is necessary to make progress in understanding who we are as a species, and what is needed to sustain a safe and healthy planet.

As a result, the Overviews (what we call these images) focus on the places and moments where human activity—for better or for worse—has shaped the landscape. Each Overview starts with a thought experiment. We consider the places where man has left his mark on the planet and then conduct the necessary research to identify locations (and the corresponding geo-coordinates) to convey that idea.

The mesmerizing flatness seen from this vantage point, the surprising comfort of systematic organization on a massive scale, or the vibrant colors that we capture will hopefully turn your head. However, once we have that attention, we hope you will go beyond the aesthetics, contemplate just exactly what it is that you’re seeing, and consider what that means for our planet.